Add option to not delete resource group when running `azd down` command

[Lunatico9]

Describe the feature or problem you’d like to solve

Presently, it appears that the azd down command always deletes the entire resource group and there isn't any way to change that (unless I'm missing something in the documentation). This discourages the use of azd down if the user running the command doesn't have subscription-wide permissions to create a new resource group and must use an existing resource group created by someone else, with the template modified for a resource group scoped deployment.

In such cases, the user needs to manually delete the individual resources through the Azure Portal or Azure CLI to avoid deleting the resource group, thus pulling the user away from using azd exclusively and towards using other tools. This has been my personal experience.

It would be useful to be able to choose whether the resource group gets deleted or not.

Proposed solution

I think this could be an additional flag for the azd down command that allows you to choose whether the resource group gets deleted or not. It might be worth exploring whether it makes sense to have the resource group be not deleted by default when targetScope = 'resourceGroup' inside main.bicep.

Looking at a comment in a previous issue, it seems that azd currently always deletes the resource group without looking at the inside resources. This would probably have to change to allow for not deleting the resource group.

Additional context

What shows up when I try to run azd down even though I want to avoid deleting the resource group:

For context, there are only 8 individual resources within this resource group, meaning that the displayed total of 9 resources to delete must also include the resource group itself. I don't want the resource group to be deleted.

[Menghua1]

@rajeshkamal5050 When targetScope = 'resourceGroup' and executing azd down, the current behavior of azd is to delete the entire resource group.

Should we consider adding a new prompt asking the user whether they want to delete the resource group?

• If the user chooses not to delete the resource group, we would only delete the resources deployed this time.
• If the user chooses to delete the resource group, we will keep the current deletion logic unchanged.

If this proposal is feasible, we will open a PR to implement this improvement.

[jmerkow]

+1

[Menghua1]

When targetScope = 'resourceGroup' and executing azd down, the current behavior of azd is to delete the entire resource group.

Should we consider adding a new prompt asking the user whether they want to delete the resource group?

• If the user chooses not to delete the resource group, we would only delete the resources deployed this time.
• If the user chooses to delete the resource group, we will keep the current deletion logic unchanged.

@vhvb1989 Do you have any thoughts or suggestions on above approach?